


La Pesadilla

by ceralynn



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Child Abuse, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-05
Updated: 2015-08-05
Packaged: 2018-04-13 01:57:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4503390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceralynn/pseuds/ceralynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick is haunted by his past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	La Pesadilla

Nick Amaro is twelve years old, standing alone in the kitchen. Garbled, angry Spanish floats in from the next room, interspersed with loud blows. It's his mother and father arguing, at first, then it's just his father, yelling, yelling.

If he can make it to his bedroom, he'll be safe. His father won't find him there, will burn out his anger before it can reach him, but Nick can't move. Instead he watches, petrified, as his father looms into view, moves toward him like a spectre until his form fills Nick's vision. His hands move too fast for Nick to see and suddenly they're around his neck, squeezing tighter, tighter, tighter until his vision blackens around him. For a second he feels the barest flash of relief that it's over, it's finally over; his father certainly can't hurt him if he's dead.

The next thing he feels is confusion because the black around him isn't fading into Heaven or Hell, it's fading into the ceiling of a bedroom. Rafael's bedroom, in Rafael's house, which he realizes now is not the house he grew up in, not the house where all his trauma occurred.

Every time he thinks these dreams can't get more vivid, but damn it, they find away.

"Nick?"

Rafael's voice is unusually soft beside him and that petrified feeling hasn't fully gone away. He feels a shifting in the bed and then Rafael's lamp is on.

"Nick." His voice takes on that courtroom steadiness once again and Nick is grateful for it. "Nick, it's alright. It was just a dream."

Nick blinks. "How could you tell?"

"You were shouting before you woke up. You usually do." Rafael pauses, then, "I didn't know you weren't aware of it."

Rafael scoots closer, drapes an arm across Nick's chest and presses soft kisses along the side of his face. Nick's heart beats so hard under his love's arm that Rafael can feel it.

"All of that is behind you," he whispers against Nick's ear. "Whatever it was, he's never going to be able to do that to you again. I can promise you that."

Something like a sigh escapes him; Rafael knows his love still struggles to accept comfort.

"I know."

"I'm serious," Rafael says more firmly. "I would sooner kill that man than see him lay a finger on you ever again."

Very faintly, Nick laughs. "You don't mean that."

Rafael is quiet for a while, long enough that Nick turns to look at him, almost alarmed by the gravity in his expression.

"Yes," he says simply. "Yes, Nick. I do."

Nick Amaro is fourty-one years old and still having nightmares like a child scares of monsters under his skin, even if those monsters are miles and miles away. And in a way that makes him feel more pathetic than words could ever express, he knows this is permanent. That if almost twenty years of self-imposed distance hasn't blunted his terror, it's likely nothing will. But he has to admit, the night terrors are so much easier to bear when Rafael is the one he's waking up to.


End file.
